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JAN 26 1890 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
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HOW TO MAKE MONEY 



BY 



«iNVENTION». 



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BY 

A, E GLASCOCK, 



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WASHINGTON, D, C, 

1899, 



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CONTENTS, 



CHAPTER. PAGE. 

INTRODUCTION 9 

I. HOW TO MAKE B'lONKY BY INVENTION . 13 

II. PATENTS 37 

III. PROMOTING INVENTIONS ... .53 
VI. DISPOSING OF INVENTIONS ... 73 

V. GRANTING LICENSES ... . -79 

VI. DISPOSE OF THE WHOEE RIGHT . . 82 
KLONDYKE 86 



MOTHER SHIPTON'S PROPHESIES. 

Published in 1485. 

Carriages without horses shall go, 
And accidents fill the world with woe. 
Around the world thought shall fly 
In the twinkling of an eye. 

Waters shall yet more wonders do 
Now strange, yet shall be true. 
The world upside down shall be, 
And gold be found 'mid roots of trees. 

Through hills and mountains man shall ride, 
Nor horse nor ass be at his side. 
Under water man shall walk, 
Will ride and sleep and talk. 



Vlll MOTHKR SHIPTON'S PROPHKSIKS. 

In the air men will be seen, 

In black, in white, in green. 

Iron in the water some day will float 

As easy as a wooden boat. 

Gold shall be found 'mid stone, 
In a land that's now unknown. 
Fire and waters will more wonders do, 
Kngland will at last admit a Jew. 



INTRODUCTION- 

There are two classes of persons to whom these 
pages may afford information and to whom they 
are chiefly addressed, viz., the person who for 
the first time conceives that he has made an inven - 
tion and who is actually desirous of benefiting 
himself thereby ; and the patentee who is anxious 
to render his newly -acquired privilege profitable. 

When a man has made what he considers to be 
a discovery or invention, he intuitively feels that 
to derive any profit from it, he must secure a patent 
for it ; but there his acquaintance with the subject 
ends — commonly he is at a loss to know what 
course to pursue. To solve the perplexities, he 
probably consults the best informed among his 
friends ; and when, as generally happens, the most 
conflicting and contradictory opinions are given, 
he ends by taking his own course, which is not 
always the best under the circumstances. Now, 
the success of a patent, like that of a book, depends 
much on the manner in which it is presented to 
public notice. As in the case of the one there may 
be sound sense, logic and talent disfigured by a 
bad style of writing, or hidden in a cloud of Ian - 
guage; so in the other, there may be good and 
practical improvements but so unsuccessfully set 



10 INTRODUCTION. 

forth as to appear theoretical and chimerical. The 
patentee, like the author, addresses himself to the 
public, from whom he expects support, and as a 
book depends for its fame much on its attractive- 
ness, so in a like manner does a patent. To pur- 
sue the parallel it must be said success depends in 
both cases on merit, but that quality will be best 
appreciated when displayed to the best advantage. 
The patentee who has recently acquired his grant 
from the Government, has, to some extent at least, 
marked out his course. 

He has already put his head to the plow, and 
must not look back. The field is before him, 
which, by cultivation maj^ yield good returns ; but 
although he may have sown good seed, care will 
be requisite for bringing it to perfection. The 
author of these pages makes no other pretension 
than that of attempting to give to his readers the 
best information regarding the subjects written on 
that his experience dictates. He presents no nos- 
trum to make all patents profitable and has no 
alchemy at hand to transmute old ideas and schemes 
into subject-matter for new and profitable patent 
privileges. 

The work of searching into the novelty of in - 
ventions is one of great responsibility we all know. 
Although an Inventor may satisfactorily make his 
own search, he will not, if he possesses an ordi- 
nary amount of prudence, meddle further with the 
proceedings necessary for obtaining his patent. 



INTRODUCTION. <. 11 

I/Ord Saint lyeonard once said that the best clients 
the lawyers had were the men who made their own 
wills — these home -made documents leading to end - 
less litigation among the deceased's testator. It 
cannot be said that self-drawn specifications are 
prolific of fees to counsel because the men who 
prepare their own specifications have seldom genius 
enough to invent anything valuable and only valu - 
able inventions are infringed ; but this much is 
certain that such specifications are almost neces- 
sarily worthless and consequently they leave the 
door open to infringers, should it turn there is 
anything in them. But it is when a patentee wishes 
to grant a license or to sell his right that he dis - 
covers the impolicy of having acted without pro- 
fessional aid. For when a manufacturer enter- 
tains the idea of taking a license from a patentee 
or of purchasing his rights, he will (if a prudent 
man) consult his legal adviser and the professional 
man will conceive but a poor opinion of the valid- 
ity of a patent, the specification of which has been 
drawn by an amatuer. The solicitor in such a 
case would send the document to a patent attornej^ 
with instructions to inquire into its validity, who 
would, without much difficulty, pick it to pieces. 
If an offer was made of the grant of a free -hold 
site upon condition of erecting on it a properly - 
constructed dwelling house, would not this grantee 
be extremely careful to comply with the condition ? 
So with patents : The condition of tenure in the 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

patent is the erecting on it a substantial super- 
structure. 

After having secured a patent which protects 
the Inventor to the fullest extent, the next prob- 
lem that naturally confronts him is how to make 
money by the invention. There are many ways 
by which this is done and it is the object of this 
book to relate, as nearly as possible, the steps taken 
by Inventors who have profited by their inventions 
with the hope that the example thus set may be of 
use to those who seek to profit thereby. As be- 
fore stated, it is not claimed that this work will 
make every invention valuable, but if it succeeds 
in leading a very small per centage of Inventors 
in the right direction, it will have accomplished 
its object. Hovv^ever, it is believed that there is no 
patented invention in existence to-day but what, 
if it is properly handled, it might be made to pay 
at least something ; for time and again inventions 
which, to the casual observer, have seemed to be 
most frivolous and visionary, have in the end 
proved to be very valuable. Therefore, no rule 
can be laid down whereby the value of an inven - 
tion may be determined in advance of an actual 
trial of the device, and opinions on this subject 
amount to very little, the true test of the value of 
an invention being the amount of money that it 
will command after it has been developed. 



CHAPTER I. 

l)ovp to malce money hy lit\^ention. 

The faculty of invention, one of the noblest at- 
tributed to man, pre-eminently distinguishes him 
from all other created beings — for they, animated 
by instinct, are incapable to deviate from the ways 
of their projenitors ; but man is perpetually devis- 
ing new modes and forms of action ; and the more 
he invents, the more he seems to be capable of in- 
venting. It is to the exercise of this faculty of the 
human mind that we owe our advanced state of 
civilization ; without inventors we would still be 
in a state of semi -barbarism. Muirhead, in his 
life of Watt, remarks : "The respect which in all 
ages and countries has ever been paid to inventors 
seems indeed to rest on something more profound 
than mere gratitude for the benefits which they 
have been the means of conferring on mankind, 
and an implied, that it does not express, a con- 
sciousness that by the grand and original concep- 
tions of their minds they approach slightly more 
nearly than their fellows to the qualities and pre - 
eminence of a higher order of being." **The dig- 
nity," says Lord Bacon, ''of this end of endow- 
ment of man's life with new commodity appeareth 
by the estimation that antiquity was made of such 



14 HOW TO MAKE MONEY BY INVENTION. 

as guided thereunto; for whereas founders of 
states, law givers, exterpators of tyrants, fathers 
of the people were honored but with the titles of 
demagogues ; Inventors were ever sacred among 
the gods themselves." We have of late recog- 
nized the claims of Inventors to national honors 
in several living instances, and this is better than 
awarding posthumous praise, but we are still 
backward in this respect, and the chief reward 
which the Inventor can truly rely upon, is to be 
derived from a grant of Letters Patent. 

The gift of invention is indeed one of the most 
exalted gifts of man ; and when we trace modern 
civilization with the barbarism of savage life, we 
must know that all the arts which minister to our 
wants and conveniences are due to Inventors. 
But for them we would still paddle in canoes, 
cover our floors with rushes and go to battle armed 
only with the spear or cross-bow. For those arts 
which have placed conveniences and luxuries 
within the reach of the poorest classes which were 
unattainable formerly even by the rich, we are in- 
debted to Inventors. Neither has the art of war 
been still to the valuable attempts of the Inventor. 
If the invention of gunpowder, as we all know it 
did, completely revolutionize the art, the ingenuity 
of inventors in the operation of warlike instru- 
ments has effected almost as great a change since 
the days of Gettysburg. Great benefits, it is true, 
have been derived by the introduction of steam. 



HOW TO MAKE MONEY BY INVENTION. 15 

steam navigation, the paddle, screw, power loom, 
the locomotive, the electric telegraph, the sub- 
marine cable, photography, and phonography; 
war has been shortened and made more decisive 
by the use of improved arms of precision — the 
Springfield, Remington, Krag-Jorgensen, Martini - 
Henry, and Mauser Rifles, together with the Arm- 
strong, Whitworth, Gatling, Driggs-Seabury, and 
Sims -Dudley ordnances — and by the introduction 
of a variety of powerful projectiles, but it is safe 
to say, a new era of invention is now upon us. 
While necessity is not always the mother of in - 
vention, it is an ever stimulating agency in its de- 
velopment ; and the limit is not yet reached — the 
exigencies of the hour will turn genius to war- 
like things. Take the Navy, for instance. 

According to "The Engineering News," although 
the French ship, I^a Gloria (with 4^ inches of 
rolled iron plates on a heavy wood backing) , had 
been launched two years previously, the memor- 
able battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac, 
in Hampton Roads (March 9, 1862), was the first 
actual combat between armored ships. The prev- 
ious destruction of wooden war ships by the iron - 
clad proved to the world that the long -boasted 
"wooden walls" were powerless in the face of an 
adversary of that class, and England, France and 
other nations at once began that struggle between 
armor plate and guns which has resulted in the 
present wonderful development and power of ships 



16 HOW TO MAKE MONKY BY INVENTION. 

of war. Many failures marked the path of this ad - 
vance ; but it is possible that the limit has about 
been reached in the building and armament of these 
terrible engines of war. The displacement of these 
ships has reached 14,000 tons and more ; 18 inches 
of a high quality of solid steel armor protect the 
vital parts; guns of 13 -inch caliber throw projec- 
tiles with a muzzle velocity of 2 ,400 feet per second ; 
high explosives are employed in shells and torpe- 
does, and enginesof 10,000 horse -power give these 
heavy hulls a speed of 17 knots or more. Guns 
and ammunition are now so heavy that machinery 
must be employed for handling them, and electric 
power and electric light find place in the equip- 
ment along with many minor applications of the 
latest developments of the science of war. Even 
with all the advance in the treatment of materials 
and the resultant cheapening of the product, the 
cost of these ships is now enormous, as is shown 
by the fact that within the last sixty days three 
great nations have appropriated $240,000,000 to be 
expended upon their navies. 

The exigencies of the civil war produced the 
Monitor and the Merrimac, and undoubtedly hast- 
ened, if they did not compel, the changes in the 
building and arming of warships which have taken 
place within the last thirty odd j^ears. It would 
be a strange coincidence if a somewhat similar 
emergency should now bring about an American 
development of another type of vessel that would 



HOW TO MAKE MONEY BY INVENTION. 17 

destroy these same great battleships, and stop the 
expenditure of money upon them from mere com- 
mercial considerations. The advent of a thor- 
oughly manageable submarine torpedo boat, fitted 
for operating in comparatively deep water, and 
capable of effectively delivering torpedoes or dyn - 
amite projectiles, will settle the question of battle- 
ship attack upon the ports of a country. The cer- 
tainty of destruction would be so great that no 
nation cbuld afford to invest five or six millions 
in an armored battleship that may be sunk by a 
vessel costing so little that a fleet of a hundred of 
, them could probably be built for the price of one 
battleship. The idea itself is as old as the days 
of James I of England, and late experiments by 
France, Spain and Germany, have been failures. 
But we again have faith in the same American in - 
ventive genius that caused such an upturning of 
methods, following the events of 1862, and late 
trials with the Holland submarine torpedo boat 
would seem to warrant the presumption. The In- 
ventor of to-day has great advantages over his 
predecessors, in improved methods of construc- 
tion, compressed air, storage batteries and gaso- 
line fuel for surface work ; and while the problem 
is many-sided and difficult, it is by no means im- 
possible of solution, and an urgent demand for 
the services of such a vessel would mean its ulti- 
mate successful development. 

What a revolution in naval warfare such a craft 



18 HOW TO MAKK M0NE:Y BY INVENTION. 

would bring about ! It would practically abolish 
three of the most advanced types of warships, the 
battleship, the torpedo boat, and the torpedo boat 
destroyer. The first of these brought out the sec- 
ond as a means of attack upon the battleships of 
the enemy ; and the third was introduced as a 
defense measure against the second. The fast, 
lightly -armored cruiser would probably be left as 
a commerce defender, but against this type of ship 
the torpedo is practically useless, hence, there 
would be practically no further use for torpedo 
boats. It is difficult to see what measure of de- 
fense could be devised against such an unseen sub - 
marine, but powerful enemy; and to find and at- 
tack this under-water craft with another vessel of 
the same type would be practically impossible, and 
add an additional element of terror to a warfare 
that is terrible enough as it is. The Holland boat 
is intended not only for attack upon the hull of a 
ship by automobile torpedoes, but she is fitted to 
hurl dynamite projectiles both above and from be- 
low the surface. She has thus three separate 
means of attack, and a successful hit by any one 
of these projectiles would mean the certain sink- 
ing of the vessel attacked. The great value of 
submarine boats as a means of defense would be 
their cheapness and rapidity of construction, and 
the ability to thus attack in a swarm, with the 
chance of escape for the enemy correspondingly 
small. But if battleships cannot attack a fortified 



HOW TO MAKE MONEY EY INVENTION. 19 

port, cruisers certainly could not, and submarine 
torpedoes or short-range dynamite projectiles 
would be useless against land works armed with 
modern high -power guns. This assumption would 
confine naval battles between heavy ships to the 
high seas, and from a political point of vievi^ the 
result of such a battle would be valueless ; and 
the submarine boat might even be so developed as 
to enter into combat of that nature by being car- 
ried to the vicinity of the scene of combat on the 
cruiser. So it may again be said that the man 
who invents and builds a workable submarine tor- 
pedo boat will as surely drive the battleships and 
their dependents from the naval lists of the world 
as the advent of armor -clads and rifle -guns made 
useless the ships of Nelson's time. The navy has 
been reconstructed several times since the days of 
Perry, and owes still more to Inventors than even 
the other branch of the service. It is but a few 
years since the admiralty timely permitted the use 
of steam in the navy as an "auxiliary power." 
Now comparatively few ships are built to sail only, 
and it might almost be said that honored is the 
auxiliary power. Notwithstanding the agitation 
of armor -building and of turreted ships, the 
navy seems to invite and demand still further 
efforts of inventive genius to solve problems which 
perplex the best of our naval architects and en - 
gineers ; much remains to be discovered, and fur- 
ther improvements have yet to be made in con - 



20 HOW TO MAKE MONEY BY INVENTION. 

nectioti with screw propulsion. Much as we are 
indebted to Inventors for the past and present, it 
may be said that we are still absolutely dependent 
on them to maintain our position in the future. 
The power, pre-eminence, and wealth, mainly 
acquired by inventions of Watt and Arkwright 
need to be replenished by further great discoveries 
or by opening up of new manufactures, otherwise 
it is to be feared this nation will enter upon an 
eia of decadence. Wealth and luxury, it is true, 
abound ; but they abounded in the latter years of 
the Roman Empire. 

'In many of the manufacturing arts where for fif- 
teen years the European countries have been pre- 
eminent ; through the ingenuity of the American 
Inventors, we now excel. This is owing to the 
fact that we pay more attention to the technical 
education of our people, and as a result of our ex- 
cellence in these arts we are now outstripping 
many of the European countries in these branches 
of trade. We have many Inventors who equal in 
originality and usefulness of their ideas those who 
flourished in the last century and our Inventors are 
responsible for more good for the general welfare 
than armies or navies can ever effect. We excel 
in those arts which improved the dwellings of the 
workman and add to his comfort, and in those arts 
which should freight our ships to the utmost parts 
of the earth and which profitably employ our 
abundant population. These triumphs which were 



HOW TO MAKE MONEY BY INVENTION. 21 

made possible by Inventors we claim as our own. 
If we do not, after the manner of the ancients^ 
reverence our Inventors, we occasionally award 
them honars and accrue to them the more sub- 
stantial reward of wealth. To Watt has been 
erected a suitable monument in Westminster 
Abbey ; with one of the most appropriate epitaphs 
ever placed on a tomb, written by Lord Bacon and 
commencing' with these words : "This monument 
was erected, not to perpetuate a name which must 
endure while peaceful arts flourish, but to show 
that mankind have learnt to honor those who best 
describe their gratitude." Fitting words in praise 
of one who, as Sir James Macintosh said, "must 
be placed at the head of all Inventors in all ages." 
In England three descendants of Inventors have 
sat in the House of Peers : Earl Dudley, a 
descendant of Dudley, an Inventor in iron manu- 
facture; Eord Foley, a descendant of Folej^ an- 
other Inventor in iron making; and Lord Belfour, 
descended from Jedediah Strut, patentee of the 
Stocking Frame. Of Foley, who was one of the 
originators of the iron manufacture, the following 
. story is told : 

He commenced life about two centuries ago as an 
itinerant musician at Stroubridge and was form- 
erly known as Foley, the "Fidler." Hearing that 
the Swedish iron masters had a machine for slit- 
ting iron into bars and braces, which in England 
was most laborously performed by hand, and that 



22 HOW TO MAKE MONEY BY INVENTION. 

the construction of this machine was a secret jeal - 
ously guarded, Foley set off one morning on a bold 
and ingenious expedition. He "fiddled" his way 
to Hull, worked his passage across to Stockholm 
and thus by aid of his violin, invaded the Swedish 
iron district. Here like a true disciple of Orpheus, 
he so charmed the iron workers that they admitted 
him to the very mills he had gone expressly to see ; 
and while his fingers were busy with his instru- 
ment, his eyes and head were at work mastering 
all the details of the machine. In due time the 
long -lost fiddler again turned up in Stroubridge, 
and by the prudent use of the secret he had thus 
sedately won, effected almost a revolution in the 
English iron trade, accumulated a large fortune 
and founded a family. 

If we investigate the history of manufactures in 
England during the last one hundred years, we 
shall find that the tendency of patents has been to 
foster and encourage art, and that the patentees 
who are almost always identified with manufac- 
turers, have been highly successful and largely re- 
munerated by means of their patents. The same is 
equally true in the United States. 

The influence of patented inventions is most 
strikingly shown in the creation of new industries 
of enormous magnitude since 1880 — that is, within 
the term of patents now in force or but very re - 
cently expired. 

Of these new industries the most noted are those 



HOW TO MAKE MONEY BY INVENTION. 23 

directly connected with the development of elec - 
trical inventions. The manufacture of electrical 
apparatus and supplies began to be of importance 
shortly before 1880, and in that year seventy -six 
establishments, employing 1,271 persons, and pro- 
ducing an output valued at $2,655,036, were in 
existence. In 1890, the number of establishments 
had increased to 189, employing 9,485 persons, 
and producing an output valued at $19,114,714. 
In the electric light and power industry, as reported 
in 1880, there were but three establishments in the 
United States, employing 229 persons and pro- 
ducing an output valued at $458,400. At the close 
of 1894 there were in the United States, 2,124 cen- 
tral stations supplying electricity for light and 
power, and 7,475 isolated plants, a total of 9,599 
establishments. The capital invested in these 
central stations is stated to have been $258,956,256, 
and the capital invested in the isolated plants, 
though not stated, was probably not below $200,- 
000,000. A conservative estimate of the number 
of persons employed at that time in this industry 
would not be under 45,000. The use of electricity 
for power purposes has found its most notable de - 
velopment in the electric railway. The first elec- 
tric street railway in the United States was put in 
operation little more than ten years ago. In 1880 
of the 2,500 road miles of street railway in the 
United States nearly all used animal power. The 
total mileage of electric railways in the United 



24 HOW TO MAKE MONEY BY INVENTION, 

States up to October of 1897 was 13,765 miles out 
of a total mileag:e of 15,718, of which but 947 
miles were horse -car lines. The total capital in- 
vested was $846,131,691. 

The telephone in 1880 was just be^s^inning to be 
commercially known. At the close of 1896 there 
were in the United States 967 telephone exchanges, 
and 832 branch offices, using 536,845 miles of wire 
and employing 14,425 persons. The total amount 
stated to be invested in telephone property in 1895 
was $77,500,000. 

The great development of the bicycle industry 
has come since 1890 as a result of the inventions 
in pneumatic tires made about that time. In 1890 
there were reported as engaged in the manufacture 
of bicycles 27 establishments. In 1895 more than 
200 establishments were engaged in the manufac- 
ture of cycles, and the output of wheels for that 
year is stated to have been not less than 800,000. 
The product in 1897 was over 1,000,000 wheels. 
In 1880 a large proportion of the cycles used were 
imported,, mainly from England. In 1897 the ex- 
ports of cycles and parts of cycles to England 
amounted to a value of $2,128,491, and the total 
exports amounted to a value of $6,902,736. 

It may appear to be superogatory to insist on 
the fact that patents for inventions have been 
largely remunerative; practical men engaged in 
manufactures all know this well. Some years ago 
a few optimists vigorously called for the abolition 



HOW TO MAKE MONEY BY INVENTION . 25 

of patent rights and their chief argument was that 
patents were unremunerative to Inventors. They 
based the fallacy on the premise that because some 
patents are unremunerative, because some Inventors 
have been ruined, because some patents have been 
litigious, therefore patents ought to be abolished. 
Since that time, however, many who were in favor 
of abolishing all patent rights have shown their 
appreciation of it b}^ obtaining patents for their 
inventions. I^et it be granted that man3^ trivial 
and many absurd ideas are unfortunately patented, 
let it be conceded that many Inventors have wasted 
their substance over impractical schemes, yet we 
shall find the great bulk of inventions which pass 
the Patent Office are for useful articles of manu- 
facture or machinery, and that the majority of 
patentees, if they do not acquire wealth, amply 
repay themselves for their outlay and labor. 

The patent S5^stem has stimulated inventive 
thought. Benjamin Franklin, a man of science, 
stood by the side of the old hand lever printing 
press for a generation, and left it where it was left 
three centuries before by Guttenburg. It remained 
for Hoe and other Inventors, who worked under 
the stimulus of the patent laws and patented their 
inventions, to produce that marvelous machine for 
disseminating knowledge that has made the world 
a university. A century ago the apprentice learned 
the skill and secrets of his craft and jogged along 
contented with his requirements. To-day no 



26 HOW TO MAKE MONEY BY INVENTION. 

workman expects to leave his craft or calling with - 
out lifting it to a higher plane and providing it 
with better instrumentalities. A new power of 
achievement has come into human thinking. Men 
of all callings seem to have acquired the faculty, 
ftnd no explanation of the change is plausible 
which ignores the stimulating influence of a cen - 
tur}^ of patent law. 

The patent sj^stem has stimulated men to trans - 
form their thinking into things. It is a long and 
toilsome road from the first fugitive suggestion, 
through failure and discouragement and tempor- 
ary- defeat, to an invention in a form perfected. 
If men were not induced bj^ the rewards of a patent 
system to cling to their new ideas through all the 
vicissitudes of an Inventor's experience their hands 
would drop in discouragement. The story of the 
lost arts has never been told, even by Wendell 
Phillips, and decades and centuries of possible 
progress have been, wrapped up in inventions 
which have dawned upon the human conscience 
only to disappear and be forgotten. 

The patent system encourages men to disclose 
their inventions. The duty of men to disclose 
their discoveries is one which, if it exists at all, has 
never been recognized. It is not so, however, 
when patent laws prevail, and for a hundred years 
men have hastened to share with the public their 
newly acquired ideas because of the invitation con- 
tained in the patent system, and the phenomenon 



HOW TO MAKE MONEY BY INVENTION. 27 

of rediscovery is now a very rare experience. 

The patent system enables Inv-entors to make 
their efforts fruitful, and saves them from the folly 
of misdirected labor. The Official Gazette of the 
Patent Office publishes to the world the claims and 
one or more drawings of each patent. Each num- 
ber of the Gazette may be likened to a series of 
maps, exhibiting- that borderland adjacent to the 
illimitable unknown upon which the sun of human 
invention has shed its radiance, while clocks and 
watches have registered a week of time. Inventors 
need not and do not, as formerly, delve in ex- 
hausted mines. 

If any proof were needed of the utilit}^ of in- 
ventions, or profits which towns derive therefrom, 
one has only to turn to the history of such cities 
and towns as Pittsburg, Chicago, St. lyouis, Bos- 
ton,L5^nn,to acquire ample evidence that prosper- 
ous towns are the efforts of manufacturers, who 
are either themselves Inventors or become the 
users of inventions. Most of the cities of our 
flourishing manufacturers were le.ss than a century 
ago, comparatively unknown and unpopulated. 
Before Pullman established those gigantic factories 
which became necessary for the working of his 
inventions, the town of Pullman was unknown. 

It is quite true some Inventors have been quite 
unsuccessful, some utterly unfortunate — some by 
circumstances beyond their control, but many 
by their own waywardness or want of thrift. 



28 HOW TO MAKE MONEY BY INVENTION. 

Many of the causes of failure have been purely 
personal, arising from a flitiness of disposition 
which sometimes masters Inventors. Such men 
were inconsistent in their pursuits, irregular in 
their conduct, and consequently unsuccessful in 
their career. They perhaps resemble the hare in 
the fable, and suffered the tortoise to outstrip them 
in the race. Perhaps it was very misfortunate to 
have stopped short in their efforts, when perse- 
verance would have insured success. Such was 
the case with Paul and Wyatt, who, thirty years 
before Arkwright, Inventor and patentee of code 
of spinning by rollers, which, in the hands of the 
latter, produced such prodigious results. The}^ 
seem to have abandoned the project after a brief 
struggle with difficulties. Arkwright persevered 
and overcame all difficulties. Others have been 
undoubtedly the victims of combinations of manu- 
factures formed to resist their claims. Heath, the 
improver of steel manufacture, was cruelly op- 
pressed in this manner. The trade of Sheffield 
combined to contest his patent and finally ruined 
him by expensive litigation. Nothing could be 
alleged against his character and he must be re- 
garded as a victim to an unjust conspiracy. 

Happily such instances as these are rare. In 
recent times, whenever manufacturers have com- 
bined to resist the claims of patentees they have 
been signally defeated. This was the case in 
Kngland with the iron masters who locked to- 



HOW TO MAK?: MONEY BY INVKNTION. 29 

gether to resist Neilson, the Inventor of the Hot- 
Blast process of smelting iron; and with the Mil- 
lers, who associated themselves together to contest 
the validity of Boviel's patent for grinding grain, 
and who, after an outlay of £40,000 were utterly 
defeated. So again there was recently a combina- 
tion of users and mixers formed to dispute the 
validity of a patent for a well-known mowing ma- 
chine and the patentee utterly routed them with 
enormous loss to themselves. There seems to be 
implanted in the breast of all great Inventors an 
indomitable spirit which generally enables them 
to overcome all obstacles. The Inventor who does 
not feel that he possesses this invincible self-will, 
must endeavor to acquire it, always assuming that 
his invention is worth contending for. It was this 
strong will that enabled some to brave death itself 
in the effort to carry out their projects . The strug - 
gles of Palissy, the potter, in his endeavor to dis- 
cover a good vitreous enamel, have formed the 
theme for many a tale ; how in sheer despair, he 
over and over again destroyed his furnaces, and 
commenced afresh his tedious labors. Lombe 
risked his life when in disguise, he visited the 
Italian silk factories, in order to acquire a knowl- 
edge of silk -throwing machinerj^ which he after- 
wards introduced in ^^ngland to so much advan - 
tage. Arkwright overcame difficulties sufficient 
to daunt the strongest will. He was only a poor 
countr}' barber and was compelled to neglect his 



30 HOW TO MAKE MONEY BY INVTSNTION. 

business in order to complete his models and ex- 
periments. His wife became so exasperated by 
his indifference to his legitimate b usiess that, in 
a fit of passion, she destro3^ed all his models, which 
to him and to the world were of priceless value. 
Notwithstanding he persevered, and despite all 
opposition, established the value of his ideas and 
lived to become high sheriff of his county, and to 
accumulate an enormous fortune. 

The man who brought us, man}^ years ago, the 
ordinary cleanliness and civilization of using forks 
became the object of an absolute persecution. His 
innovation was taken in the worst possible spirit 
by English society which worked itself into a rage 
of contemptuous indignation that seems well 
nigh incredible to us. He was sneered at in 
society, satirized on the stage, rebuked from 
the pulpit, and reproved by grave writers. 
The same experience befell the first man who 
used in England another convenience that is 
now universal — the umbrella. Its use was con- 
sidered unmanly and in the middle of the eigh- 
teenth century, Jonas Hanway, who carried and 
used an umbrella, was mobbed in the streets and 
called after b5^ small boys. 

The idea of electric telegraph was conceived by 
Samuel Morse while on a sea voyage to New York. 
He unsuccessfully endeavored to obtain a patent 
upon his conception in England, but was awarded 
a United States patent in 1837. After perfecting 



HOW TO MAKE MONEY BY INVENTION. 31 

a model, he exhibited the working results to Con- 
gress with the hope of procuring assistance from 
the Government in order to bring it to a practical 
issue, but he struggled along unsuccessfully and 
in poverty until the year 1843, when, as he had 
almost yielded to dispair and abandoned his in- 
vention, Congress at midnight and during the last 
minutes of the session appropriated $30,000 for an 
experimental line between Baltimore and Wash- 
ington. Since then the electric telegraph has been 
an assured thing and has been one of the great 
factors in forming a modern civilization and ad- 
vancing the world's prosperit}^ 

Every invention that is now in practical use, the 
telegraph, telephone, typewriter, railroads and 
electric cars, were the results of theories held by 
their Inventors. All scientific men are necessarily 
theorists. Their researches are pursued on unde- 
fined ideas — their discoveries are the results of their 
theories. Very often when one of these people ad- 
vance a theory that appears to be extravagant, 
the public laughs at it, but when it is demonstra- 
ted that the theory can be reduced to practice and 
that it will be valuable to mankind, we cease to 
laugh and admire. 

George Stevenson's project of propelling car- 
riages by steam on iron rails met with similar ob- 
structions and when a bill was introduced in the 
English Parlament to provide for the construction 
of an experimental road. Sir Isaac Coffin de- 



6d HOW TO MAKE MONEY BY IKVENTION. 

nounced the project in the following" terms : 

"Railroad trains would take manj^ hours to per- 
form the journey between Liverpool and Man- 
chester and in the event of the scheme's success, 
what, he would like to ask, was to be done for all 
those who had advanced money in making and 
repairing turnpike roads? What was to become 
of coach -makers, harness-makers and coachmen, 
inn-keepers, horse-breeders, and horse-dealers? 
Was the House aware of the smoke and noise, the 
hiss and the whirl which locomotive coaches pass- 
ing at the rate of ten and twelve miles an hour 
would occasion? Neither the cattle ploughing in 
the fields, or grazing in the meadows could behold 
them without dismay. Iron would be raised in 
price, or more probably be exhausted altogether. 
It would be the greatest nuisance, the most com- 
plete disturber of quiet and comfort, in all parts 
of the kingdom that the ingenuity of man could 
invent." 

Even Edison, the wonderful wizard of modern 
times who produced many valuable inventions 
whereby the world has been electrified, his patents 
at present being numbered by the hundreds, in his 
initial steps met numerous embarrassments and 
obstacles and not until shrewd capitalists realizing 
the amazing possibilities of his conceptions took 
interest in his patents and advanced the necessary 
capital, did his wonderful inventions prove suc- 
cessful or remunerative to him. All of which 



HOW TO MAKE MONEY BY INVENTIOX. o3 

goes to show that iu man}^ instances valuable in- 
ventions are conceived that are far ahead of the 
time in which they are produced, and when this is 
the case the Inventor has before him the difficult 
task of compelling- the public to investigate and 
ascertain the merits of his invention in order to 
insure its successful introduction. This task of 
itself is by no means easy, and when it is coupled 
with other duties apparently insurmountable, the 
situation of the Inventor is not at all times envi- 
able. The fact remains, however, that the inven- 
tions that have done most to revolutionize the arts 
and sciences of the world have been produced and 
been introduced under just such circumstances, and 
the facts will ever remain the same for the appli - 
ances of modern times will be changed and effected 
only by the Inventors who encounter and overcome 
such obstacles as were thrown in the wa}'- of Stev- 
enson, Morse, and Edison. 

If we turn to the history of great statesmen, 
great v\^arriors, or of men who have founded great 
commercial houses, we shall find that they one and 
all possessed a strong will and strength of purpose 
which enabled them to overcome the difficulties 
which came in their way. 

Napoleon remarkably illustrated this force of 
character when he said he found no such word as 
"impossible" in his dictionary. More assuredly 
that when a man is gifted with high inventive 
powers, he will almost invariabl}^ possess those 



34 HOW TO MAKE MONEY BY INVENTION. 

qualities requisite to enable liim to bring his dis- 
coveries to a profitable and practical issue. 

Professor Morse tells a story of his early strug- 
gles. When he was in Washington employing all 
his energy to obtain an appropriation from the 
Government to erect a line from Baltimore to 
Washington, he had his instruments at each end 
of the capitol to demonstrate to the members of 
Congress the feasibility of the plan. He says : "I 
talked to them, explained the working of the in- 
strument, hour after hour. I gained many adher- 
ents ; still I saw that many were j^et incredulous, 
and many even scouted at the idea as preposter- 
ous, and pronounced my instrument the toy of a 
crack-brained enthusiast It was toward the close 
of the session, there were still about two or three 
hundred bills yet to be passed before they came to 
mine. It was late at night, and finally I gave it 
up in despair, and I left the Capitol building with 
a sad heart. I was bankrupt, having expended 
all that I had on my discovery. I walked down 
the Capitol steps with fift3'- cents, all I had in the 
world, and a more disconsolate individual it would 
be hard to find. After a wakeful night, I arose in 
the morning, found my bill passed, and a new era 
in the history of science commenced. "They that 
sow in sorrow shall reap with jO}^" 

The ordinary modes of what is called "making 
money" are prosaic, although sure. They invite 
the exercise of much industr}^ accompanied by in - 



HOW TO MAKE MONEY BY INVENTION. 35 

tegrity and perseverence. The tradesman who 
expends less than he earns, may, in the course of 
time become a capitalist. The foreman may, after 
the lapse of j^ears, come to be a master, and the 
steady apprentice may, in due season, rise to the 
splendid dignit}^ of mayor of his native city. This 
is all as it should be, for in the ordinary course of 
life neither fame nor fortune is to be acquired at a 
jump. Notwithstanding- there are exceptional 
ways of acquiring a place in the Temple of For- 
tune, whereby a man suddenly finds himself en- 
riched. Sometimes it is by means of an invest- 
ment in mining shares, or b5^ a fortunate contract, 
or what is called a speculation in wheat or stocks. 
These and numerous other modes of acquiring 
wealth are more or less hazardous, and are not 
comparable to the safe means by which the same 
end may be attained by a patent. For all the ways 
above indicated depend on circumstances quite 
beyond the control of the Inventor, or speculator. 
Whereas a patentee has his expenditure and his 
risk under his own control . To obtain any appre - 
ciable result in the one case, a man must speculate 
with a considerable sum of money; by an ex- 
penditure of a few hundred dollars on a patent, an 
Inventor may and frequentl}^ does realize thou- 
sands. The privileges conferred by means of a 
patent are more frequentl}^ undervalued than 
overestimated . 



CHAPTER II. 

Patents. 

A patent practically involves the grant of a 
monopoly for seventeen j^ears, with the power to 
license or use the Invention to an unlimited ex- 
tent. There is no other privileg-e known to the 
law of this nation which is so important. Neither 
the Executive or the legislature can confer like 
privileges and advantages to any person than the 
Patentee of an invention. If there be any analo- 
gous grant it is that of an Act of Congress for a 
railway franchise, and then the analogy is not 
complete, for every railway company is bound to 
use the line upon specific terms. The Patentee 
can inpose such terms as he pleases for the use of 
his invention and is bound in no respect. It is 
true he can force none to make use of his inven- 
tion, but he has only to show the- advantage which 
must flow from its adoption to insure its being 
used. The force of competition is so great in trade 
in the present age that when a cheaper or better 
way of manufacturing an article can be shown, it 
is generally eagerly sought for. Want of success 
must arise for want of energy or tact. If wanting 
capital itself, a Patentee must generally call capital 
to his aid, provided his Invention possesses in- 
trinsic and undeniable value. 



PATENTS. 37 

There is no countr}^ in the world where patents 
are so highl}^ valued and are so lucrative as in the 
United States of America, where there are 24,000 
applications for Patents in a year, of which about 
20,000 are granted. That is more by 600 per cent. 
than is granted in England. One of the great 
causes of the successful working of Patent Inven- 
tions in the United States is the mode adopted of 
granting licenses for the separate cities and states. 
An American Patentee, if he manufactures the 
article, will not put the article on sale in the ordi- 
nary wa3^ but grant a license to a vendor in every 
city in the state for the exclusive sale of the manu- 
facture, sometimes with power to grant sub-licenses. 
These are not licenses to manufacture, but simply 
licenses to sell retail or wholesale. For such privi- 
leges American shopkeepers are readily found to 
pay amounts varying from $500 to $5,000 and the 
nature of the result to a Patentee is highl}^ profit- 
able, while the guarantee the shopkeeper obtains 
is the monopoly of the selling of some attractive 
article of merchandise. All Patentees, who, b}^ 
giving licenses to sell for a small consideration, 
derive much profit. As an illustration of the se- 
verity of American Law against infringers, the 
following case may be quoted : 

"In New York City, on the 1st of Janaury, 1871, 
Judge Blatchfield ordered a decree in favor of R. A. 
Tilgham,of Philadelphia, against Roland Mitchell, 
for $229,000 for infringement of his acid and glic- 



38 PATENTS. 

erine patent. This is the largest decree for in- 
fringement of patent ever granted in New York. 
Generally, then, it may be asserted without fear of 
contradiction, that patents are the only safe means 
by which wealth may be acquired exceptionally. 
What to-day is a mere idea, a suggestion, a thought, 
which without protection, is at anybody's service, 
becomes to-morrow by virtue of the grant, a prop- 
erty which no one can invade with impunity, a 
property capable of returning even a princely in- 
come, which may be enjoyed for seventeen years 
with the certainty that its results will reach far 
beyond that term ; for whenever there is value in 
an invention, the good -will, so to speak, it brings 
to its owner, lasts longer after the expiration of the 
term of the patent. Many, indeed, it might be 
said nearly all, or most of the great business en- 
terprises owe their origin and their continued pros- 
perity to the fact that the founder was a Patentee. 
When a manufacturer acquires celebrity for a pat- 
ented article, the public will continue to resort to 
his house long after the expiration of the patent 
even although competitors should arise, and after 
the goods have become common articles of trade. 
A prestige appertains to the first manufacturer 
which invariabl}^ gives him pre-eminence over 
his rivals — in this respect the value of a good 
patent is incalculable. 

W^hen a manufacturer who has been successful 
working an invention, finds that his term of patent 



PATENTS. 39 

right is about to expire, he so improves, if possi- 
ble, the manufacture as to warrant his procuring 
another patent, and thus, although the market 
may be flooded with the original article, he will 
still alone possess the right to manufacture the 
improvement; and the fact of his obtaining a 
fresh grant will in most instances prevent others 
from interfering with him. There may be in- 
stances when this course will not be practicable, 
simply because the invention cannot be improved; 
but this will rarely happen. Almost every pro- 
cess and nearly everj^ machine or mechanical 
arrangement can be modified, if not absolutelj^ 
improved, and this to a extent sufficient to bring 
it within the grasp of the Patent Law ; while with 
most vendible articles of merchandise it is always 
possible by the exercise of a little ingenuit3^ to 
improve and better. Thus may be engrafted on 
the old stock a new issue capable of bearing good 
fruit and of flourishing during at least another 
seventeen years, and in this time a manufacturer 
ought to be able to hold his own against all the 
world. 

"Nothing succeeds like succcess." When once 
a Patentee begins to be successful he will find the 
flow continuous and increasing. Mankind all the 
world over patronizes him who shows his talent 
bj^ his works, when the momentum of success is 
once acquired its impetus is ever in an increasing 
ratio. But to insure success the Inventor must 



40 PATENTS. 

commence right. He must make sure that he has 
invented something new and useful ; then he must 
take proper measures to secure valid Letters 
Patent ; and next he must enter upon a course of 
action best adapted to bring a return for his out- 
lay of time, and it ma}^^ be capital. In other words, 
he must have a good invention, he must properly 
secure it, and judiciously work it. To aid him in 
attaining these ends is the endeavor to show "How 
to Make Money by Invention." In everj^ pursuit 
in life much depends on the proper commencement 
of work, whether it be the entrance upon studies 
for a profession, the application of a student to 
acquire science, or the apprenticeship of an artificer. 
Therefore the judicious Inventor will instruct 
himself in the art to which his invention relates. 
Should he be practically unversed in it he will 
make himself acquainted with the matter and en - 
deavor to understand the rights and privileges he 
acquires under Letters Patent. When a man con- 
ceives that he has invented something not before 
known or used, he should endeavor to ascertain 
whether in reality the invention be new and useful. 
For these are the cardinal points on which its 
value depends; these are also the chief legal re- 
quisites for the validity of a Patent. The law re- 
quires as the essence of the validity of a grant of 
Letters Patent that the invention claimed should 
be new and useful, and properly described in the 
specification. One of the first difficulties which 



PATENTS. 41 

most Inventors experience is that of ascertaining 
the novelty of their conceptions . This is , of course, 
materially enhanced when, as it often happens, the 
invention hit upon is altogether foreign to the In - 
ventor's ordinary pursuits. Of course when the 
invention relates to a process or manufacture in 
which the Inventor is well versed, there should be 
little or no difficulty in ascertaining its novelty. 
Few men of intelligence practice an art without 
knowing what is new and what is old in its details. 
But there are so many occasions in which men step 
out of their beaten track and, as they conceive, in- 
vent a novelty in some art in which they are not 
versed, that it may not be inopportune to offer a 
few suggestions on this subject. Whether or not 
the best inventions have originated from persons 
external to the art to which they are related may 
be an open question, but certain it is, many re- 
markable discoveries have been made by persons 
who had little or no previous knowledge of the 
subject. Watt was not educated as an engineer^ 
but as a philosophical instrument maker. Ark- 
wright, beyond residing in a manufacturing town, 
had not the slightest connection with machinery, 
being by trade a barber. Neither Ratcliff , Cramp - 
ton, Hargrave, nor George Stevenson were skilled 
in the trades in which they effected such vast im - 
provements. The Inventor of a great improve- 
ment in calico printing was a commercial traveller, 
lyce and Cartwright, to whom we are indebted for 



42 PATENTS. 

improvements in the manufacture of lace and 
stocking- webbing, were clergymen. Singularly 
the Inventor of naval tactics as practiced under 
the old regime, was also a clergyman; BerthoUet, 
the Inventor of bleaching by the use of chloride, 
was a physician ; Henry Cort, the improver of 
iron manufactures, was a naval agent; Paxton 
was not an architect but a gardener; Petitt Smith, 
who assisted greatly in the introduction of steam 
propelling, was a farmer; Sir Henry Armstrong 
was originally a lawyer. In endeavoring to dis - 
cover the reason why men, previously unacquainted 
with the theory and practice of an art, should be able 
to improve it, we must take into consideration the 
fact that invention may be the result of intuition, 
of induction, of experiment, or of accident. Some- 
times the mind of an Inventor intuitively perceives 
what is required to render (say) a machine effi- 
cient. This happened when Watt discovered that 
the then ineffective "fire" engine might be im- 
proved by condensing steam in a separate cylinder. 
This happy idea was purely an intuitive one, 
which was afterwards proven to be sound by ex- 
periment and practice. 

It is this faculty of the mind which so often 
enables man to improve an art in which he has 
had no previous acquaintance, while those who all 
their lives have been practicing it fail to supply 
what is required. This may be said to be a 
precious gift — genius of the highest order. At 



PATENTS. 43 

Other times, Invention is the product of a process 
of inductive thought, long pursued it may be. 
Instances are not wanting where men have pur- 
sued an idea a whole lifetime, and at length have 
accomplished the end they had in view. To enter 
into an analysis of this process, would involve a 
psychological disquisition foreign to the purpose 
of this work. For the most part, chemical inven- 
tions result from experiments, but not a few have 
been discovered in this science as well as in mechan- 
ical art, by accident. It is said the invention of 
the anayline dyes was discovered by pure acci- 
dent; and it is authenticated that the invention 
of vulcanized India rubber was due to the fact of 
some of that substance coming jaccidentally in 
contact with sulphur. In like manner the beautiful 
invention of glass is said to have been accidentally 
discovered by some travellers in the desert of 
Arabia when some alkali becoming heated on the 
sand, produced the vitreous matter. Unquestion- 
ably we are indebted for very many valuable dis - 
coveries solely to accidental causes, although at 
the same time much credit may be due to intelli- 
gent discoveries. Nptwithstanding that numerous 
valuable inventions have been intuitively per- 
ceived or accidentally discovered, the fact still 
remains that most of them are brought to light by 
laborious study, application, and experiment ; and 
the man of genius who sets himself to the task of 
inventing must resolve to work hard, rather than 



44 PATENTS. 

rely upon happy thoughts or the results of acci- 
dents. Let him make sure, however, that what 
he is in search of is not contrary to the laws of 
mechanics or in direct contradiction to phj^sical 
science ; let him commence right with a good sub - 
ject, and by ingenuity and perseverance he may 
accomplish all that he desires. 

Thomas A. Edison is reported as having said : 
"If you want a recipe to succeed as an Inventor, 
I can give it to you in a very few words, and it 
will do for any other business in which you might 
wish to engage. First, find out if there is a real 
need for the thing which you want to invent. Then 
start to thinking about it. Get up at 6 o'clock the 
first morning and work until 2 o'clock the next 
morning. Keep on doing that until something in 
your line develops itself. If it don't do so pretty 
soon you had better shorten your sleeping hours 
and work a little harder while you are awake. If 
you follow that rule you can succeed as an In- 
ventor, or as anything else for that matter. It was 
the following of just such a rule that led to the 
invention of the electric light, the phonograph, 
and the kinetescope. 

"I believe that any person, even of the most 
limited capacity, could become an Inventor by 
sheer hard work. You can do almost anything if 
you keep at it long enough. Of course the man 
with a natural aptitude would get there first, but 
the other plodder would eventually gain his point. 



PATENTS. 45 

The constant brooding on the one thing is sure to 
develop new ideas concerning it, and these in turn, 
suggest others, and soon the complete idea stands 
out before you. Above all things a man must not 
give up, once he has outlined his plan of action. 
A ball rolling down hill is sure to reach the bottom 
ultimately, no matter how many obstacles stand 
in the way. It is this principle which finally 
levels mountains. So, once fairly on your way, 
don't stop because of some seemingly impassible 
object in front of you. What you want may be 
just beyond your nose, though you do not see it. 

"I once had that fact forcibly presented to me. 
I was working on an invention and finally reached 
that point when I could go no further. The thing 
lacked something, but, try as I might, I could not 
tell what it was. Finally I got angry with it and 
threw the whole thing out of the window. After- 
ward I thought how foolish the action was and 
went out and gathered up the wreck. In putting 
it together again I saw just what was needed. 
Repairing the broken portions suggested it, and it 
was so simple I wondered I had not seen it before. 
Now that little addition of the apparatus could 
have been ascertained by a little thoughtful ex- 
perimentation. I suppose I found it out quicker 
because of the 'accident,' but that does not alter 
the moral of the accident. 

''How do I go about inventing a contrivance? 
Well, that is hard to say. Everything requires 



46 PATENTS. 

different treatment. First, as I said, I find out if 
there is a real need for a thing. Then I go at it 
and attack it in every way I can think out. This 
multiplied attack soon simmers down until I get 
what might be called a composite idea, something 
which is a combination of all that I have thought 
of before, or else the one feasible idea which seems 
to discount all the rest. Having once gotten started 
on what I think is the right track I keep up the 
pace until the goal is reached. The only thing, 
therefore, I can say to the 3^oung Inventor is to go 
ahead and do likewise. There is one piece of 
advice I can give, however. When a man starts 
to invent, let him do so with his mind free from 
all knowledge of what has been done already in 
the particular field he is investigating. For in- 
stance, if I am about to work out something, I 
never read up on it, nor do I inquire what has been 
done on it by other Inventors. Knowledge of this 
kind is almost certain to prove a snag in the path 
of the Inventor. He gets into the rut made by his 
predecessors and stops off where they have stopped. 
On the other hand, if he goes in a direction of his 
own, there are no ruts ahead of him; nothing in 
fact, to obstruct his progress. I have several times 
made inventions in this manner; then when I 
have completed them I have read up on the sub - 
ject. I found my ideas were entirely original, but 
at the same time the ideas of the other fellows 
were so good up to a certain point, that I should 



PATENTS. 47 

have been tempted to follow in their footsteps if I 
had done any previous reading up. 

"Of course the question of natural aptitude enters 
into the matter, and without it no man can become 
a star; nevertheless, it is an auxiliary attainment; 
dogged perseverance is really the quality most to 
be desired. Dogged perseverance is the keystone 
to success. In the arts, such as painting, music, 
poetry, and so forth, a very special temperment 
may be required, but in the workshop of science 
men of the sanguine, 'sandy' kind come out ahead. 
The man who keeps at one thing and never minds 
the clock is always sure to do something. He 
may miss many social engagements, of course, 
but his success is assured. 

"The history of great Inventors shows that 
accident has been responsible for many initial 
ideas. This, however, is not always the case, nor 
should it be. Given a small amount of aptitude 
and a large amount of application, any man can 
enter the business of inventing and make a living 
scant at first, but more lucrative as he goes 
along. There are not many who realize what this 
'large amount of application' really means ; the 
getting up very early, the staying up very late, 
and the sticking at it, meanwhile, with a vim that 
can never recognize failure. Men of this kind are 
sure to, succeed. Probably millions of people are 
dabbling to-day in mechanical inventions of some 
nature, but the most of it is too spasmodic to count 



48 PATENTS. 

for much in the long run. They do not keep at it 
enough. If a business man were to neglect the 
routine business of his daily work, if he were to 
go to his office one day or two days in the week 
and then put the rest off until next Monday, or 
until some other time when the spirit moved him 
he would soon have to assign. 

' ' It is just so with invention . You have to pur - 
sue it as a business, and even more steadily than 
the ordinary business. If the young man starts 
into it with the notion of sitting down and wait- 
ing for some grand, good idea to come along, he 
will get, as they say, very decidedly 'left.' Ideas 
grow upon one. They are a matter of habit just 
like anything else. If you get into the habit of 
conceiving good ideas they will grow upon you 
until you have more than you need." 

We will conclude this part of our subject by 
quoting a few passages from the interesting work, 
"Smiles' Industrial Biography." 

"The beginning of most inventions is very re- 
mote. The first idea born in some unknown 
brain, passes thence into others, and at last comes 
forth complete after a parturition it may be of cen - 
turies. One starts the idea, another developes it, 
and so on progressively until at last it is worked 
out in practice ; but the first, not less than the 
last, is entitled to his share of the merit of the 
invention. Sometimes a more original mind strikes 
upon some new vein of hidden power and gives a 



PATENTS. 49 

powerful impetus to the inventive faculties of man, 
which last through generations. More frequently, 
however, inventions are not entirely new, but 
modifications of contrivances previously known, 
though to a few, and not yet offered into practical 
use. Glancing back over the history of mechan- 
ism , we occasionally hear of an invention seemingly 
full born, when suddenly it drops out of sight 
and we hear no more of it for centuries. It is 
taken up de novo by some Inventor stimulated by 
the needs of his time, and following upon the 
track he recovers the old foot-marks, follows them 
up, and completes the work. There is also such 
a thing as inventions being born before their time; 
the advanced mind of one generation projecting 
that which cannot be executed for want of requi - 
site means ; but in due process of time it is at 
length carried out; thus it is that modern In- 
ventors are enabled to effect many objects which 
their predecessors had tried in vain to accomplish. 
As Louis Napoleon has said, "the inventions born 
before their time must remain useless until the 
arrival of intellects to comprehend them." 

The inventions born out of time and before the 
world could make practical use of them, are so 
numerous that one is almost disposed to accept 
the words of Chauncy as true, that "there is noth- 
ing but what has once been old;" or as another 
writer puts it, "there is nothing new, but what 
has been before known and forgotten;" or in the 



50 PATENTS. 

words of Solomon, "there is nothing new under 
the sun." Friar Bacon, who flourished in the 
Thirteenth Century, seems only to have antici- 
pated, in the following remarkable passage, nearly 
all that steam could accomplish, as well as the 
hydraulic engine and the diving bell, though the 
flying machine remains to be invented. "I will 
now," says the Friar, ''mention some of the won- 
derful work of art and nature, in which there is 
nothing of magic, which magic could not perform. 
Instruments may be made so the largest ships 
with only one man guiding them, will be carried 
with greater velocity than if they were full of 
sailors. Chariots may be constructed that will 
move with incredible rapidity without the help of 
animals. Instruments of flying may. be formed, 
in which a, man sitting at his ease, and meditating 
on any subject may bat the air with his artificial 
wings, after the manner of birds. A small instru- 
ment may be fabricated by which one man may 
draw a thousand men to him by force, and against 
their will ; as also machines which will enable men 
to walk at the bottom of seas or rivers without 
danger." It may be well to consider the term 
"inventions," for it is an error to suppose that 
all inventions come within the scope of Patent 
Law many are quite beyond it. Indeed the 
Patent Law is restrictive in this respect, that it 
excludes from its operation all such inventions as 
are not manufactures, or which do not produce 



PATENTS. 51 

vendible articles. Thus no purely philosophical 
discoveries or intangible schemes, ideas, or prin- 
ciple can validly form the subject-matter of a 
patent ; others must be what the laws call subject 
of invention, and this must be, or result in, some- 
thing tangible and valuable. 



CHAPTER III. 

Promoting Tnt^entions. 

We have arrived now at that stage when the 
Patentee may properly consider what are the best 
means he can adopt to bring a return or to "make 
money" out of his invention. Occasionally an 
Inventor maybe found who is animated by phil- 
anthropic motives or the desire of acquiring fame ; 
but in general in this, as in most other pursuits in 
life, the chief stimulus to labor and exertion is 
the hope of acquiring, if not wealth, at least an 
adequate pecuniary reward. 

Disraeli, in one of his works, remarks "that 
the great secret of success in life is for a man to 
be ready when his opportunity comes , ' ' and this ap- 
plies with great force to the case of a Patentee. He 
should be prepared to consider an opportunity and 
even create one. Improving opportunites is well, 
but making opportunities is better. Many a man 
says that he could do something if he only had the 
opportunity, but the man who is determined to do 
something will secure the opportunity, even if he 
has to make it. Bacon says : "A wise man will 
make more opportunities than he finds." 

First of all the Inventor should properly appre - 
ciate his position and endeavor to form an accurate 
estimate of the value of his invention. His posi- 



PROMOTING INVENTIONS. 53 

tion, he may bear in mind, is that of a sole pro- 
prietor of a valuable property — a property as 
sacred in the eyes of the law as that of land tenure 
or any other prospective right — a property capable 
of being subdivided to an unlimited extent and of 
yielding returns, not merely remunerative, but ab- 
solutely lucrative. His position is similar to that 
of a man who possesses a rough diamond which 
needs judicious cutting and polishing ; it may be 
likened to that of the owner of a mine, rich in ore, 
which awaits the skill and energy of the miner. 
Always assuming that his invention is really good, 
he has in his own hands the carving out of his 
fortune. By the exercise of prudence, by energy, 
and above all, by means of that individual quality 
called "tact," he may attain results beyond even 
the dreams of avarice; he is, however, in this re- 
spect the sole arbitrator of his destiny ; he alone is 
in power to deal with the patent. 

When an Inventor has made no arrangements 
for practically developing his patent or formulated 
any decided plans for his own course of action, the 
question inevitably presents itself as soon as his 
letters patent are received : What course is to be 
pursued in order to bring the patented conception 
to a paying basis? The Inventor as a general rule 
is without the necessary capital to bring about 
such a condition, and when this is the case, it is 
absolutely necessary on his part to seek the co - 
operation of trustworthy capitalists, and this is a 



54 PROMOTING INVENTIONS. 

task that cannot be hurriedly or easily accom- 
plished. It takes time and labor to convince 
others of the value of a new invention and for this 
reason it is unreasonable to expect an invention to 
assume paying basis in a short space of time. In- 
ventions of to-day prove no exception to the diffi- 
culties which have beset the most valuable dis- 
coveries and inventions from time immemorial. 

New and valuable inventions do not introduce 
themselves; every one who has had practical ex- 
perience will understand this point. An invention 
may have genuine merit, but people do not run 
after it. Not only that, they will refuse to adopt 
it unless it has extraordinary merit, and in some 
way proven to be of advantage to identify them- 
selves with it. People are suspicious of new de- 
vices. The reliability of the new article must be 
demonstrated by testing it in actual use before it 
will be generally accepted. Inventions, even of 
the highest order of merit, frequently have to be 
forced upon the market, and the Inventor, sooner 
or later, realizes the fact that the task of person- 
ally developing a patent or disposing of it wholly 
or in part to capitalists will be extremelj'- slow, 
even with the best management. Bessemer, the 
Inventor of the process for manufacturing steel, is 
reported to have said that it took from eight to ten 
years to get an invention introduced generally, 
and many patents have expired before they have 
proven remunerative. 



PROMOTING INVENTIONS. 55 

After the invention is made, perfected, and de- 
monstrated to be of value, it must be manufactured 
on a commercial scale in order to be available and 
brought to the attention of the appropriate users, 
or put upon the market. Articles of manufacture 
must be made in quantities and proper machinery 
for making them must be supplied. The inven- 
tion of a new machine requires that the machine 
be built, and it takes machinery to make a ma- 
chine, a shop, workmen and materials. And 
these cost money. It also requires machinery to 
make an article. One cannot tell whether an in- 
vention is really valuable until it is made in a shop 
and finished. That will insure a recognition of 
the superior merits claimed over other inventions 
of similar kind already in use. It is an almost 
unheard of thing for an Inventor to succeed, com- 
mercially, proceeding single-handed; and it seems 
to be absolutely necessary that the labors of the 
poor Inventor should be allied with the capital 
and practical methods of business men co-operat- 
ing with him in order to bring a patent to a finan - 
cial success. 

^specially is this the case in view of the fact 
that many meritorious inventions are quite as 
likely to be made by one class of Inventors as an- 
other, some of the best of them being produced 
by Inventors who have not only little or no ex- 
perience in patent practice, but who are too poor 
to develop their inventions. 



56 PROMOTING INVENTIONS. 

Before he can form an accurate opinion of the 
value of the invention, he should endeavor to as- 
certain the state of the trade to which the inven - 
tion belong-s and the effects likely to follow from 
the adoption of the discovery. If the subject be 
altogether new, he should endeavor to ascertain 
the probable use it could be applied to, or the con- 
sumption likely to follow. If there ever have been 
patents for analogous subjects, the dealing with 
them should be inquired into and the results which 
flowed from them considered. Before deciding 
upon any particular course of action, a Patentee, 
should, as it were, scan the horizon and take an 
observation of the latitude and longitude of trade. 
Was there, for example, a pressing demand for 
some new manufacture or appliance, as there is at 
the present time for appliances for raising sunken 
vessels ? or as there were a few years ago for a cov - 
ering for submarine telegraphs? or recentlj'- for 
tramways? or further back for rifles? or still fur- 
ther back for gold -washing and crushing machin - 
ery? If there be such a demand and there seems 
to be almost always some public want, then such 
a circumstance materially enhances the value of a 
patent which supplies the desired object. Such an 
opportunity to a Patentee who knows how to use 
it is a golden one. The Patentee should also ex- 
ercise his prophetic vision and forecast what is 
likely to be required. This is only doing what 
every successful merchant does. Peabody ac- 



PROMOTING INVENTIONS. 57 

quired his wealth by speculating on the probabili- 
ties of commercial alterations. 

Any lengthened continuance of manufacturing- 
prosperity must result in a dearth of labor, hence 
labor-saving machinery will come into greater re- 
quest. The opening of the Suez Canal has in- 
creased the use of steam vessels and rendered nec- 
essary improved modes of propelling and steering 
them. 

The Patentee should not accept the first pro- 
posals made to him without due deliberation, for 
it is a great misfortune to begin trammelled by 
onerous conditions, or to part with a prospective 
fortune for a mere pittance. Value is a relative 
term and an unknown quantity, therefore no law 
can be laid down for the guidance of the Patentee * 
he can only arrive at an approximation under the 
best of circumstances, and must frequently be con - 
tented with a speculative bid. It is needless to 
point out that money value of a patent for a good 
improvement in the manufacture of steel, or iron, 
is likely to be in a higher ratio than that of an im- 
provement, however good in itself in articles of 
limited use. 

The judicious Patentee, who is persuaded from 
safe deductions that his invention is sound and 
intrinsically good, will be slow to dispose of his 
interest for a small and inadequate consideration, 
simply , because he has not put it into practical 
operation ; but will rather bide his time when he 



58 PROMOTING INVENTIONS. 

may secure a satisfactory, if not an adequate price. 
If, as unfortunately is sometimes the case, he be 
pressed by straightened circumstances to accept 
whatever terms he can procure, he should endeavor 
to retain the same interest in the patent. which may 
ultimately make him a return for his talent. 

There may be said to be four ways of commonly 
dealing- with a patent. The first mode is for the 
Patentee himself to put the invention into prac- 
tical operation ; the second plan is to grant licenses 
for its use ; the third is to dispose of the whole 
right ; and the fourth is to divide the right into 
shares and dispose of part of them ; but the 
powers and privileges of the grant permit of a 
variety of dealings. Unquestionably the prefer- 
able mode is for the Patentee himself, if possible, 
to initiate the principle of the invention into the 
market. If he possesses the requisite capital and 
knowledge of the trade, he can introduce it more 
advantageously to public notice than any other 
person, because he can best combat the difficulties 
which are likely to spring up and soften down the 
asperities which generally are existed by the ap - 
pearance of a new competitor for public favor. 
Fortunate is the Patentee who is able to manu - 
facture his patented articles without extraneous 
assistance — who can appeal to the public at large, 
who, in the long run, adopt whatever is practi- 
cally useful. Not a few novices in pateHts fall 
into the error of demanding exhorbitant prices for 



PROMOTING INVENTIONS. 59 

their merchandise ; they assert that there would 
be little advantage in a patent did it not enable the 
owner to gain high profits. Certainly, a higher 
profit than is usually made in trade is due to the 
Patentee who pays for his privileges and who is to 
incur heavy expenses in experiments, models, and 
trials. But sound policy will dictate moderation, 
and the Patentee will find it to his real interest to 
cultivate an extensive trade at fair profits and rea - 
sonable prices. The effect of placing too high a 
price upon the articles is to prevent trial of them, 
and it should be the object of the Patentee to ere - 
ate, by all means in his power, a speedy demand. 
When the sewing machine was first made in 
Kngland, there was so much prejudice against it 
in some quarters, and so much indifference in 
others, that the Patentee did not sell one machine 
in a month. He also required too high a price, 
viz., £30 and £35 each. To secure the demand 
he lent machines to sundry mantle makers who 
were the first to employ them. So soon as the 
two or three of these makers had taught a few 
girls how to use the machine they took work from 
the city warehouseman at such low prices that 
their competitors who employed hand labor were 
compelled, in self-defence, to acquire machines. 
The Patentee then began to sell one machine in a 
month, and shortly after that one a week, and as 
the public discovered that the machine work was 
neater in appearance than the hand -sewn and 



60 PROMOTING INVENTIONS. 

Stood the test of wear equally well, the sale in- 
creased one a day, when the Patentee thought he 
was making his fortune. He then reduced the price 
and increased the sale to ten and twelve machines 
per diem ; and considering that he sold most of 
them at £15, although they did not cost £5 each, 
he was right then in thinking that he was making 
a fortune. 

High prices invariably excite competition, in- 
fringement, and evasion, just as high duties in- 
volve smuggling. The frightful litigation re- 
specting sewing machines, which kept before the 
courts of law for years, was caused by the excess- 
ively high prices required by Patentees in the first 
instance, and there is little doubt they would have 
been richer in the end if they had commenced 
with moderate prices, notwithstanding that many 
of them recovered large amounts as damages at 
law. It need scarcely be said the Patentee must 
not hide his light under a bushel. He must con- 
stantly keep his name before the public. In these 
times, advertising is all powerful, and the Patentee 
must not fail in this respect. 

In addition to direct advertising, which, to be 
permanently beneficial, must be systematically and 
constantly adopted, he may avail himself of that 
indirect mode of advertising which the Press can 
offer him in the shape of articles and notices. If 
his invention be of a scientific character, he has 
ample means for effecting this object, for never 



PROMOTING INVENTIONS. 61 

were there so many excellent journals published 
as there are now. 

The following article taken from Printers^ Ink 
(which by the way is of inestimable value to all 
Inventors w^ho are interested in advertising their 
inventions), gives a fair sample of business tact 
pursued by an Inventor in advertising his inven - 
tions : 

A GYMNASTIC CLUB. 



How AN Original Advertiser Introduces 
Inventions. 

*'The Hercules' " strong arm, advertising a new 
form of gymnastic club, is seen from time to time 
in the magazines at the top of a modest twenty - 
eight lines — occasionally larger. The advertiser 
is Mr. Ralph R. Gibson. I found him at the top 
of the building No. 16 South street, Boston, in the 
act of opening letters from a pile on the table at 
which he was seated. 

**The manufacture of knit goods has been my 
business for twenty years," he said. "I invented 
the club three years ago, and have given to it what 
time I could spare. I'm not a man who believes 
in neglecting his meals and in working eighteen 
hours a day. I have the parts of the clubs made 
outside and assemble them here. I prepare my 
circulars, write my advertisements and answer the 
letters. I place the ads through Pettingill & Co. 



62 PROMOTING INVENTIONS. 

lyots of people wonder why I don't advertise more 
extensively and give all my time to the manufac- 
ture and pushing of the club, but I'm satisfied to 
work in my own way. Without much effort the 
club has made surprising progress, and I don't 
worry about its future. I know it's a good thing, 
because hundreds of responsible people tell me so, 
and because I've got my own muscle by its use." 

To prove this Mr. Gibson placed a fifty -pound 
dumbbell on the table, sat in a chair at the side of 
the table and, using his elbow as a hinge, raised 
the bell through ninety degrees, so that his forearm 
was upright. I don't believe one man in a thou- 
sand could do that. I tried it, and could neither 
budge it nor feel that I was getting the slightest 
leverage on it. 

"I got the idea by grasping an old-fashioned 
chair by the top -piece of the back and finding, by 
raising the chair, that I had a leverage which ex- 
ercised the muscels of the arm. My club is on the 
principle. It's so simple that everybody wonders 
why it was not thought of before. It's the simple 
things, you know, that make money. I found 
that I could get quick results by the use of the 
club instead of waiting a long time as with Indian 
clubs and dumbbells, and then I knew I had a 
good thing to advertise. I dropped in to see 
Charles H. Taylor ,^ Jr., of the Boston Globe, I 
showed him the club, and he pulled out $2.75 
and said he wanted it. The next day I thought 



PROMOTING INVENTIONS. 63 

I'd put an ad in the Globe, and went in again to 
see young Mr. Taylor. He said : 

"Don't you doit. You'll lose your monej^ The 
people of New England won't buy a pig in a bag." 

"The3^'ll buy my club," says I. 

"I'll bet 3^ou $10 you don't get twenty -five an- 
swers," says he. 

"Nevertheless I put the ad in the Globe. It 
was three and one -half inches deep and had the 
cut of the strong right arm in it, just like the ads 
I am now using. I put the ad in for onl}^ one 
issue. Four days later I saw Mr. Taylor again. 

"Mr-. Taylor", says I, "I'm sorry I didn't take 
your bet. I've got 175 letters during the past 
four days". 

"I wouldn't have believed it", said he. "Have 
you sold any clubs?" 

"Yes, enough to pay for the ad two or three 
times over." 

"He was astonished. Altogether I received 300 
replies from that ad. The people not only bought 
a pig in a bag, but they came to Boston and 
walked up these stairs to see me. Phj^sical in- 
structors and professors of anatomy came. Even 
now they come and tell me that I ought to put the 
names of the muscles in my directions, and tell 
how to enlarge them in scientific language. I 
don't do anj^thing of the sort, but write my di- 
rections in words that a child has no difficulty in 
understanding." 



64 PROMOTING INVENTIONS. 

''What other mediums have you tried ?" 
"Very few. I'm now using McClure'Sy the 
Strand^ Argosy^ Puritan and Quaker of New 
York, and the Alkaloidal Clinic, of Chicago. 
It's easy to tell now just whal, each medium will 
do. Small ads last winter in two of the magazines 
kept me as busy as I wanted to be, and I kept out 
of everything else. My second ad in McClure's, 
which is just the same as the one I'm running 
now, brought me over 1,000 answers in one month. 
They told me it broke the record for the Argosy 
not only in letters, but in money. I tried recently 
an ad on the back cover of the Quaker. There 
was 350 quick: replies, and I wished to keep the 
ad in the same place for six months, but forgot to 
write to the advertising man, and this month I see 
it has been taken out. I can't get that position 
again for a long time. One year ago this October 
I tried a two inch ad in the New York Journal, 
morning edition. I received 100 replies and sold 
a lot of clubs. The ad cost $10, and I got from 
$150 to $200 out of it. I tried the Sunday issue of 
the Journal, but got only ten answers. That ex- 
perience convinced me that Sunday newspaper 
advertising is not the proper thing for me. The 
men who would use my club don't read the Sun- 
day newspapers long enough or carefully enough 
to see my ad. I index some of my ads by varying 
the letter after the post office box number, but 
other ads I don't bother about. Usually I can tell 



PROMOTING INVENTIONS. 65 

where the ad was seen by what the writers say. I 
don't ask them to send cash, you see, but only to 
write for pamphlet. In the pamphlet they see the 
illustration of the club and learn all about it for 
the first time, finally reading testimonials from 
those who have used it. I never solicited a testi- 
monial, but have received hundreds, the athletes 
headed by Fitzsimmons, and the business and pro - 
fessional class by men whom everybody who 
reads the newspapers knows. I don't believe in 
attempting to describe the club in the ad. It 
would take too much room, and then not be half 
done. My purpose with the ad is to tell merely 
that I am able to give muscle, strength and health 
surprisingly quick by a new gymnastic club. 
Just how it's done is a secret until the man or 
woman gets the pamphlet, and there he or she gets 
what I consider and unanswerable argument, tell- 
ing all the whys and wherefores." 

"What is the proportion of replies and orders 
from women?" 

''About one in fifty. However, this month I'm 
in The Purttait.^hich., although it is aimed at the 
ladies, is so attractively gotten up that the man of 
the household is almost sure to look at it and read 
the advertisements. The Piu^ita^i is one of the 
widely circulated New York publications. Ad- 
vertise what you've got in New York, and it will 
be talked about everywhere. People in remote 
places write and tell me that they are sure they 



66 PROMOTING INVENTIONS. 

will be pleased, because anything satisfactory to 
the New York or Boston market will satisfy them." 
''Did you ever try advertising^ by circular?" 
"No. What's the use of sending a circular to a 
man when you are not sure that he wants the arti- 
cle advertised? In other words, what's the use of 
my sending what I've got to sell to a man when 
he doesn't want it? I was surprised once by a 
circular sent at random. My wife was reading out 
of the paper one Sunday afternoon, at home, the 
name of a rich society man who was spoken of as 
just about taking up his residence for the summer 
at Newport, and I sent him a pamphlet. It caught 
him for four of my highest-priced mahogany clubs. 
It was a matter of luck, that's all." 

Of course Mr. Gibson is an enthusiastic believer 
in advertising. "My friends are surprised when I 
tell them what a little ad costs, and say that they 
would just as soon take the money and throw it 
into the fire. I would have had my first lot of 
clubs on my hands now if I had not advertised. 
The first Summer, with no advertising, my sales 
were $5 a week. This Summer the sales have been 
averaging $150 a week, although I stopped adver- 
tising in May. I began advertising with the Fall, 
because by far the greater bulk of the business is 
done through the Winter months, when exercise 
out of doors is not so common. My sales now 
average $50 a day. But to advertise successfully 
you must have a thing you can back up. No 



PROMOTING INVENTIONS. 67 

buj^er of my club ever wrote to complain that he 
was disappointed." 

When I was turning to go Mr. Gibson said : 
"Let me tell you something more about my 
quarter-page ad this month in The Puritan. Be- 
cause it is a ladj^'s periodical I was advised b}^ all 
my business friends that the ad w^ould not pay. 
It is only the third day of October, but I believe 
that I am going to get larger returns than from any 
other ad I ever tried. You know The Purita^i 
is sent to subscribers and is on the news stands 
before the first day of the month. Before October 
first I had received replies and sold clubs enough 
to get back the cost of that October ad. I was 
sure it would be a winner when the advertising 
man told me it v/ould not. When I go contrary 
to them I get results," and Mr. Gibson laughed. 

There is a large class, however, who cannot 
themselves bring out their inventions, and who 
consequently must sell the whole or a portion of 
their rights, or seek for purchasers of licenses. In 
most of the staple manufacturers, such as iron 
smelting, steel making, sugar refining, cotton, 
wool, or flax spinning and weaving, larger re- 
turns will be obtained by granting licenses than 
by a sale to any one firm. Licenses under Letters - 
Patent may be exclusive, limited, and general. 
An exclusive license amounts almost to a cession 
of the patent, and that only to be granted under 
terms nearly equivalent to its purchase. Where a 



68 PROMOTING INVENTIONS. 

royalty is covenanted to be paid, a stipulation 
should be made for a fixed minimum amount per 
annum, otherwise the licensee can only be held 
liable to pay on the actual manufacture, and he 
may think proper to cease manufacturing. Prob- 
ably all license deeds reserving royalties should 
contain a stipulation as to net amount of royalty 
to be paid annually, and in default of payment of 
that sum the license should revert to the Patentee. 
Whenever, practicable, such deed should provide 
that the articles made under the license should 
bear an engraved numbered plate, supplied by the 
Patentee, by which genuineness is insured. The 
Patentee is saved the trouble of inspecting books, 
and has a check in his own custody on the deal- 
ings under the license. 

As a means of obtaining capital for the develop- 
ment of inventions, it is a good plan to divide the 
patent into shares of say eight, sixteen, or thirty - 
two ; the owner retains a quarter or half share and 
finds less difficulty in raising capital from a few 
persons in small sums, than a large amount from 
one or two. These shareholders or joint pro- 
prietors should acquire no right to work the patent, 
but simply receive their share of any profit which 
may arise from its being worked by the Patentee, 
or from licenses, or from the sale of the privilege. 
In this manner those much-envied and sought -for 
individuals called capitalists may be induced to 
invest their spare funds in aid of poor Inventors 



PROMOTING INVENTIONS. 69 

to mutual advantage. All assignments and deeds 
relating in any way to dealings with patents to 
take legal effect, must be recorded in the Office of 
the Commissioner of Patents. 

It may be asked what will be the best mode to 
adopt to dispose of shares or licenses, or indeed 
any interest under the patent ? Since the mount- 
ain will not come to Mahomet, he must go tothe 
mountain. Capital will not in general go in search 
of the Inventor. He must therefore go in search 
of capital. The Germans have a wise saying to 
the effect that "roasted pigeons will not fly into 
your mouth." 

Whatever is good or valuable or excellent must 
be sought for early and late, in season and out of 
season, and the Inventor who seeks capital must 
gird up his loins and vigorously set out on his 
search. Before doing so, he should provide him- 
self with the best made model or specimen which 
his means will allow. Inventors often -fall into 
error in this respect. They content themselves 
with an illy -constructed clause, defected model, 
most crude and paltry exhibit, imperfect samples 
which show defects rather than advantages. If to 
this be added a dirty drawing and a written pros - 
pectus, the picture of the equipment of many In- 
ventors^on their journey in search of capital will 
be complete. With this drawing under the arm 
and unique model or specimen in their pocket, 
they journey on, sometimes for months, and some- 



70 PROMOTING INVENTIONS. 

times for years, but seldom without accomplish- 
ing their object in the long run, although by better 
management they might considerably shorten the 
term of their pilgrimage. They seem to have but 
one idea and that is to benefit the world by the in - 
troduction of their invention, until which event 
occurs, mankind, in their opinion, will remain 
in a state of semi -barbarism. They would, how- 
ever, greatly facilitate the acquisition of their de- 
sires by devoting more attention to the preparation 
of whatever improvement necessary to induce men 
to form a favorable opinion of the invention. 

A pleasing model of the character in detail, 
made to a scale and well finished, serves to per- 
suade and to silence objection ; and if drawings 
are shown, they should be neat and the prospectus 
or description always printed. When it is sought 
to interest some person with capital at hand to take 
a share with a view to putting the invention into 
operation or to enable a patent to be procured, the 
search may be made in any direction. Perhaps 
the most likely to aid are those connected in any 
way with the trade affected by the subject-matter 
of the invention. Capital is often advanced by 
clergymen, ladies and retired tradesmen, while 
others find patrons in politicians and some city 
magnates. 

In short, if capital only be required, the ways 
and means for acquiring it are numerous and 
varied, but when the Patentees seeks to grant 



PROMOTING INVENTIONS. 71 

licenses to the trade, the sphere of operations is 
more limited. In the first place, until actual prac- 
tice has taken place, there will be little or no 
chance of inducing manufacturers to take licenses. 
The first object should be to induce some one, on 
payment of a nominal royaltj^ to commence manu- 
facturing, and if the results are satisfactory, the 
area of operations may be extended. The trade 
should be addressed and canvassed personally, if 
possible, or by fitting representative; and this, 
time after time, until some tangible result follows. 

The Patentee who desires to place his patent to 
advantage must, if it relates to cotton manufac- 
tures, visit a city in New England; if relating to 
iron or steel he must go to Pittsburg or some 
other place where such materials are manufactured. 

The Patentee who is intent upon and determines 
to carry out his invention, will not fail to visit 
personall}^ the largest manufacturing houses, and 
in general will not visit them in vain. Although 
he may be a stranger and unacquainted with the 
details of the trade, if he possesses a clear head 
and a practical invention, he will meet with courte- 
ous attention and carrj'- his point. 

We have frequentlj^ witnessed the successful 
manner in which American Patentees dispose of 
their inventions in England. They literally go 
and see and conquer all difficulties, They usually 
go well primed. They take w^ith them machines 
which will work, or a dozen rifles which will shoot 



72 PROMOTING INVENTIONS. 

with accuracy. They proceed to visit the center 
of trade they wish to deal with, and by persever- 
ance, energy, and tact they succeed in accomplish- 
ing their object. 

The value of foreign patents depends generally 
much on the United States patent, although in- 
stances are not wanting of independent value. If 
practicable, the Patentee should personally visit 
some of the more important capitals, taking with 
him all that may be requisite to convey an accu- 
rate knowledge and a favorable impression to other 
people. If he be fortunate enough to acquire 
fame for his invention in the United States, he will 
experience little or no difficulty in disposing of 
his foreign patents. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Disposing of Tni^entions. 

Having thus endeavored to give a general out- 
line of the various steps in the development of the 
invention from its conception in the brain of the 
Inventor to its completion and materialization and 
protection under the patent laws, we will now 
take up separately and carefully consider the vari- 
ous modes before mentioned of "How to Make 
Money by Invention." As stated in the preceding 
chapter these modes may be classified as follows : 

1 . Patentee himself put the invention into practi- 
cal operation. 

2. Grant licenses for its use. 

3. Dispose of the whole right. 

4. Divide into shares and dispose of part or all 
of them. 

Accepting this classification as embracing sub- 
stantially all of the usual modes of disposition of 
patent rights. We will proceed to consider the 
first i. e. "The Patentee himself put the invention 
into practical operation." 

In order to accomplish this as has heretofore 
been pointed out, it is necessary that the Patentee 
have capital. The amount necessary depending 
altogether upon the nature of the invention. 



74 DISPOSING OF INVENTIONS. 

If the device is simple in its construction and 
intended for general use, a number should be 
made, and if possible they should be sold to the 
most prominent persons at hand who would have 
use for them. After these persons have used the 
'device the Inventor should visit them in person 
and ask them to give him written testimonials in- 
dorsing the article and setting forth its advantages. 
In some instances the Inventor may have difficulty 
in getting persons of prominence to give such testi- 
monials, but by exercising a little diplomacy and 
always presenting the facts in such forms as to 
point out the great good which would result from 
the general introduction of the invention, such 
testimonials can many times be secured. Always 
get such testimonials on the printed letter heads of 
the person givin the indorsement should he have 
isuch letter heads, and it might be well to prepare 
before hand a suitable outline of such a letter as 
you may judge he would give. Then let him copy 
this outline and make any alterations or additions 
that he may deem fitting. After several such testi- 
monial letters are obtained have them printed 
in a neat small circular. In this circular you 
should give a clear and concise description of the 
article together with clear cuts or pictures showing 
the same. The price of the article should be 
stated and if the device is not of a perishable 
nature the statement should be boldly made and 
strictly adherred to that if the article is not satis - 



DISPOSING OF INVENTIONS. 75 

factory the purchaser's money will be refunded. 
Too much care cannot be taken with the printed 
matter and in many cases it would be advisable to 
employ a competent person to prepare such matter. 
Neat letter heads should be printed, also envelopes 
and labels, etc. 

The circulars, together v/ith explanatory per- 
sonal letters (preferably typewritten) should be 
sent to other probable purchasers and at the same 
time a personal canvass should be vigorously pur- 
sued. In this way the Inventor, without going to 
a very great expense, can gain some kind of an 
idea as to the reception his invention is to meet 
with at the hands of the public. If the results of 
the steps thus taken should be profitable or bid 
fair to eventually afford a profit, the Inventor 
should not permit the hope of great and immediate 
gain to overcome his good judgment. He should 
exercise all of his energy and manifest in every 
possible way his enthusiasm in his invention, but 
in the expenditure of money he should be ex- 
tremely cautious, and ever bear in mind that for 
the present at least he is simply feeling the pulse 
of the public, and before becoming heavily in- 
volved it would be well to wait and consider. In 
other words, the Inventor must use his best busi- 
ness judgment the same as he would if he were 
engaged in any mercantile trade. If things are 
promising, a little newspaper advertising should 
be used, and as the sales increase this may also 



76 DISPOSING OF INVENTIONS. 

be increased. As in the circulars great care should 
be taken in the preparation of the newspaper ad- 
vertising and also in selecting the papers to be 
used. On this subject it is always well to consult 
some advertising agent, if one is located within 
reach. Thus by proceeding cautiously, one step 
at a time, a lucrative business can eventually be 
built up and a business that will be practically a 
monopoly. 

In order to get an article introduced it is some- 
times necessary to give them away at first. This 
method of advertising must not be indiscrimi- 
nately followed, but in some instances it has proved 
profitable. Not many years ago a manufacturer 
attempted to put on the market a new food cereal. 
He spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in ad- 
vertising it, but without any great amount of suc- 
cess. Some of the people who read the adver- 
tisements bought his staple and liked it, and bought 
more. But the great mass, the millions whom he 
most wished to reach, did not buy it, because they 
did not know of it. 

One day the manufacturer determined to try a 
new method. That was, to distribute an immense 
number of packages of his cereal all over the 
country. His idea was if people once tried it they 
would come to buy it, and that his sales would 
enormously increase. He is a millionaire a dozen 
times over now, and when he tried this he was on 
the verge of bankruptcy. The newspapers can 



DISPOSING OF INVENTIONS. 77 

also be used for free reading notices. In the 
smaller towns throughout the country the local 
newspaper publishers are eager to print all of the 
news, and when one of the residents of the town 
gets a patent these publishers will be only too glad 
to print news articles about the invention, and all 
of this goes to advertise the invention. In fact, it 
is the very best kind of advertising, and it should 
be obtained even if the publisher should require 
pay for it, for the chances are that other news - 
papers will copy the article and thus spread the 
news of the invention broadcast. 

Several years ago a man in a little town in Iowa 
obtained a patent for a wagon body. The inven- 
tion resided mostly in the peculiar formations of 
the irons holding the wooden sides of the body in 
place. He had a few of these irons cast and got 
up circulars describing how the boards should be 
cut and placed in the irons. He also had pictures 
of the body completed and of the irons, etc. His 
circular was so complete that a farmer could buy 
the irons and make the wagon bodj^ himself on a 
rainy day when he could not work in the field. 
The Inventor was himself a farmer and sold a few 
sets of irons to his neighbors. From this humble 
beginning he is to-day making more by selling his 
irons than he is from his farm of over 1,000 acres, 
in fact he has from the proceeds of his invention 
paid off a heavy mortgage on his farm and is at 
present considering the advisability of building a 



78 DISPOSING OF INVENTIONS. 

factory on his own land. The desire to succeed 
by inventing is stimulated by the success of those 
who do invent. If we see a man who used to work 
fifteen hours a day for a modest living build a 
house in the best part of town and buy diamonds 
for his wife and horses for himself, we naturally 
wonder "where he got it." When we learn that 
it came from successfully handling his patented 
invention we feel as though we should use our best 
efforts to make money froili our own inventions, 
and this can be done, for what one man can ac- 
complish can be done as well by another. 




CHAPTER V. 

erantiita £icen$e$. 

Any conveyance of a right under a patent, 
which does not amount to an assig-nment or sale, 
is a license. It is a license if it does not convey 
the entire and unqualified monopoly, or an un- 
divided interest therein, throughout the particular 
territory to which it refers. The following have 
been held to constitute licenses only. An exclu- 
sive right to make and sell, but not to use; an 
exclusive right to make and use, but not sell ; an 
exclusive right to use and sell, but not to make; 
and an exclusive right to make, to use and to 
sell to be used for certain purposes, but for no 
other. The right to manufacture, the right to sell 
and the right to use, are each substantive rights 
and may be granted separately by the Patentee. 

As an example of the first form of license i. e. 
an exclusive right to make and sell, but not to use, 
the following is given. The Patentee of a machine 
for grinding and polishing plate glass licenses a 
manufacturer to make and sell the machines, but 
forbids him from using the machines, reserving 
this right to the purchasers. As it is apparent 
that extensive use of such machines would result 
in keen competition between the purchasers.,, and 



80 GRANTING LICENSES. 

the use of the machines by the manufacturer 
would give him an unfair advantage over the pur- 
chasers and this would discourage them, the result 
being that they would refuse to buy the machines, 
thus cutting out the Inventors' profits. 

This form of license however is very unpopular 
for many reasons and can only be used to ad- 
vantage in a very limited number of inventions. 
As an example of the second form; i. e.^ An ex- 
clusive right to make and use, but not to sell, the 
following is given : The Patentee of a brick kiln 
licenses a brick manufacturer to make and use his 
brick kiln, but prohibits him from selling any of 
them. This form of license can be used to ad- 
vantage in many of the larger inventions of a 
nature as that above mentioned. As an example 
of the third form ; i. e. , an exclusive right to use 
and sell, but not to make; the following is given : 
The Patentee of a cut-off for cisterns travels 
through a State and sells to a tinner in each county 
the exclusive right to use and sell, but reserves to 
himself the right to make. Thus the tinner must 
buy of the Patentee. The tinner having the ex- 
clusive right to sell in his county, and he can also 
use. This is a very advantageous form to use as 
there are many inventions that can be handled in 
this way. The Patentee receiving anywhere from 
$100 to $500 per county and then making a fair 
profit on each article sold. Such inventions as 
churns, farm fences and gates, and water cut-offs 



GRANTING LICENSES. 81 

and troughs, etc., being especially adapted for 
profitable handling under this form. 

As an example of the fourth form i. e.y an ex- 
clusive right to make, to use, and to sell to be used 
for certain purposes, but for no other, the follow- 
ing is given : The Patentee of a machine for mak- 
ing gas grants a person exclusive right to make, 
to use and sell the machines to be used for lighting 
railroad cars alone, reserving to himself the 
rights to make, to use and to sell the machines to 
be used for other purposes, or selling the rights 
for other purposes to other persons. 

To accomplish these transactions the Inventor 
must in all instances be prepared to demonstrate 
the feasibility of his invention. He must show to 
the purchaser the extent of the field, and present 
to him the figures showing his profits and chances 
for gain by his labor and investment. To do this, 
good models must be provided, or better still the 
actual working machines. The purchaser must 
be seen in person and convinced by logical argu- 
ments. To reach the purchasers in many instances 
is a difficult job, but by perseverance and earnest 
solicitation this can be overcome. The names of 
probable purchasers can many times be obtained 
from the business directories of the towns and 
cities, and when one possible buyer is interested 
through correspondence the Patentee should lose 
no time in going to him in person and shovv^ his 
invention. 



CHAPTER VI. 

Dispose of m Ulbole Kigbt. 

This must be done by assignment, sale, or trade. 
To accomplish this it is also necessary to convince 
the probable purchaser that there is money in in - 
vention for him. When a manufacturer or other 
person is convinced and he has the money it is an 
easy thing to consummate the sale. The first thing 
for the Inventor to ascertain is the financial con- 
dition of the probable buyer. This can be gotten 
at in many wa5^s. Or the Patentee may organize 
a stock company under the laws of any State and 
sell the patent to the company. Or if the pur- 
chaser is in possession of property that the Pat- 
entee could use to advantage a trade on these lines 
may be accomplished. By this last method Pat- 
entees have often acquired farms or comfortable 
homes in exchange for these patents. 

Divide the Patent into Shares and Dispose of 
Part or All. 

Of all of the modes heretofore treated this is 
probably the easiest, for the mere fact that the 
Patentee is disposed to retain an interest in his 
patent himself inspires confidence in the pur- 
chasers. The patent may be divided in any num- 
ber of shares, and these shares sold to different 



DISPOSE OF THE WHOLE RIGHT. 83 

persons, the Patentee possessing them all until 
sold. This can be done even before the patent 
is granted and while the application is pending- 
before the Patent Office. In this way the Patentee 
can raise sufficient funds to obtain his patent, 
build his models or machines, and have his print- 
ing, etc., done. Even after these shares have been 
sold, and should the shareholders be in a position 
themselves to make a favorable disposition of their 
shares, this can be accomplished by calling a 
meeting of the shareholders and agreeing upon a 
certain sum in exchange for the entire patent. 
After such a sale is made the proceeds are divided 
among the shareholders in proportion to their re- 
spective interests. As an example of the above, 
a Patentee decides to divide his patent into 100 
shares. These he sells to any who will buy at 
from $25 to |50 or $100 each, according to the 
nature of the invention and its probable useful" 
ness. He thus realizes some money and at the 
same time is interested in the patent. Bach person 
who holds a share is just as much interested and 
will dp all in his power to make a profitable dis- 
position of his holdings. Thus the Inventor is 
assisted financially and in fact, and thus assisted 
it is but reasonable to suppose thai he eventually 
will make more profit from his invention. 

In fact there are many, many ways in which 
patents may be handled to be made profitable to 
the Patentees. It requires some study and a defi- 



84 DISPOSK OF THK WHOIvK RIGHT. 

nite plan of procedure, these together with that 
greatest of all virtues, perseverance, will render 
profitable to a limited degree at least the most un - 
promising and prejudiced invention. 

In conclusion to properly set forth an invention 
to a manufacturer or purchaser it is essential : 

1st — To show its advantages over well -known 
devices in the art to which it appertains. 

2d — Its cost; based if possible, on experience, or 
by quotations given by reasonable parties for its 
production by the dozen, hundred, gross or thou- 
sand, as the case may be. 

3d — The profits; manufacturer's, wholesaler's 
and retailer's. 

4th — The market to be supplied. This is deter- 
mined according to the nature of the invention. 
If it is an invention useful to both sexes, children 
and adults, its market will be the whole popula- 
tion of thelUnited States (about seventy million 
souls). If useful to any one of the classes, viz: 
adult males, adult females, male children, female 
children, alone, the market will be about one- 
fourth the entire population, and if useful in every 
family, about one -fifth the entire population, the 
average family consisting of five persons. 

As the United States Census Reports contain 
full statistics of the different trades, the number of 
any distinct class can be readily ascertained. In 
fact the^amount of business in most trades can be 
taken from the Census Reports. 



DISPOSE OF THK WHOLE RIGHT. 85 

5th — The price to be asked. This must be as- 
certained by a careful consideration of the above 
items. 

6th — When manufactured by the Patentee and 
sold to dealers or larg-e consumers, an important 
item is its weight and displacement ; showing the 
number that can be shipped per hundred -weight 
or packed within a standard -sized freight car. 

Having endeavored to give the best possible ad- 
vice to Patentees concerning the successful promo- 
tion of their inventions ; and with an earnest ef - 
fort to encourage these deserving persons, it is the 
sincere hope of the author that they may glean 
many grains of gold from the matter herein con- 
tained. 



86 KI^ONDYKK. 



"Let Klondyke mines to others go, with all their fabled 

ore, 
Let others g-olden fortune seek upon the Yukon's shore, 
I know a mine that holds for me a surer vein of g"old 
Than any Klondyke 'placer, ' with its hunger and its cold. 



"One need not take his life in hand to win my store of 

pelf, 
One need not elbow others to advance the course of self. 
One need not travel far from home to suffer and to freeze. 
To win the fortune I can gain in qtiiet and in ease. 



"One need not sleep on adamant exposed to storm and 

wind. 
And delve into mother earth for what he'll chance to find. 
One need not risk the chance of thirst, of famine, and of 

woe, 
To gain the treasures that are) in this spot which I know. 



"And so I'll join you never in your fortune-seeking train. 
And in the end I'll have far more than half of you will 

gain. 
I'll never scar sweet Nature's face for millions — largely 

naught. 
But work the mine she gave me, as I scratch my head for 

thought." 



COST OF PATENT, 



TOTAL COST OF MAKING AN APPLICATION 
FOR A U. b. PATENT. 



A PATENT RUNS FOR 17 YEARS. 



EXAMINATION AND REPORT AS TO PATENT^ 
ABILITY OF INVENTION FREE. 



First Payment, One=haIf Attorney's Fee, $15. 

Upon payment of the above amount vre immediately begin the 
preparation of the Official Drawing's and specification which will 
fully and clearly illustrate and describe all the new and patentable 
features and include the claims of the invention. The drawing: 
and specification is then sent to the inventor. 

If after a careful examination of the drawings and specifica- 
tion by the inventor. the3" meet with his full approval in every re- 
spect, he should return them to us with $30.00. Of this amount $15 
will be for the First Government Fee for filing the application in 
the Patent Office, and $15 will be the balance of our fee. As soon 
as the inventor returns to us the drawing and specification and the 
above amount, we will immediately file them in the Patent Office 
and send the inventor the Government filing receipt. 



The inventor ean then manufacture and sell his article, ma- 
chine or device and mark it "'Patent Applied For", or "Patent 
Pending," and can sell Coimty or State Rights under his applica- 
tion or can sell the whole or part interest in his invention. 



These costs relate to an ordinary case capable of being properly 
illustrated by a single sheet of Official Patent Drawing. When- 
ever the case is complicated and requires more than one sheet of 
Official Patent Drawings to clearly and properly illustrate the in- 
vention, the labor in preparing: tiie Legal Patent Specifications is 
correspondingly increased on account of each extra sheet of Official 
Patent Drawing, and the costs are slightly increased. 



No other fee will be required for Proseciiting the application 
before the Primary Examiner of the Patent Office. After the ap- 
plication tor patent is allowed the inventor can pay the Final 
Government Fee of $20 into the Patent Office at any time within six 
months. 

For Further Information Send For Our Circular. 



GLASCOCK & COMPANY, 

PATENT ATTORNEYS, 
636 F Street N. W., Washington, D. C. 



mmmSLmr. CONGRES? 



019 935 701 3 



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